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This is no different than professional calligraphers losing their jobs because of the printing press and then later due to customizable fonts on printers. I ha

This is no different than professional calligraphers losing their jobs because of the printing press and then later due to customizable fonts on printers. I have a ton of respect for calligraphers and believe they are artists, but at the same time I don't think that the millions of people who create custom fonts or use custom fonts are doing a bad thing.

mrtksn 4y ago
Artist function is not limited to the act of producing the creation. Their value comes from creating the methods of exploring ideas or feelings and not from the output itself. Guernica is not invaluable because no one else can draw it and Picasso is not infamous because drew the best lines. Just to be clear, I think art made with AI also can have value because it's a tool after all. My concern is, it breaks the business for the people that feeds on and that's not OK.
- bioemerl 4y ago
  > My concern is, it breaks the business for the people that feeds on and that's not OK. Why not? This is a website that's filled with programmers, almost all of our wealth is built on the skulls of jobs that once existed, and those programs were built without the consent of the people whose jobs were automated away, often through observing and rewriting the processes they used to do. The standard, this has been going on for decades, the only reason it's getting backlash is because this is a group of people who never expected to have this happen to them.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    We automate people's jobs, not taking their intellectual properties and build machines that can churn endless versions of it. The people put out of work by computers no longer work and they were paid in full for the work they did, unlike the people who developed intellectual property on their own dime hoping to be compensated later only to find out that their work was copied and distributed by the computer people.
    - ForestCritter 4y ago
      Automated jobs do the physical work. Here the computer is redistributing the physical work made by the artists, however much diluted. AI cannot make art on its own, it needs to be fed physical art and then be told what it is and what to do with it. It is not automation, it is simply a data manipulating tool.
      - sorry_outta_gas 4y ago
        to me it's less about the process and jobs lost and more about some feeling loss related to the excitement about removing expression and experience from a domain for honestly very little real benefit continuing to transform things which in part centered around exploration, discovery and experimentation into something cold and kind of dumb like we will make some interesting things but it's the general trend of modern society that upsets people everything just getting easier/worse faster
        ForestCritter 4y ago
        That is also my feeling. There is nothing like having a pile of raw materials, or a set of new inks or water color pencils, etc. and to explore the boundaries of what you can do with them. Art being made from a menu seems rather sad.
        8note 4y ago
        On the other hand, paints and canvases are very very expensive, making art a domain of the rich. You can use the ai tools at the library, making art more proletarian. I think the pushback is around status and elitism, and that people with certain backgrounds are societally expected to be not making art.
        ForestCritter 4y ago
        I picked up some nice canvases recently at the dollar tree. Masonite, wood and paper can be painted on. Masonite is actually preferable for acryllic paints and it is quite affordable, as are acryllic paints themselves. You can paint with coffee grinds and beet juice...the exploration is endless. I come from a family of seven living in the backwoods and most of my artist friends would not nearly qualify as rich. I had a teacher once who made the most beautiful art out of entirely recycled metal junk. Art is a reflection of culture, top to bottom and ingenuity plays a big role. Ingenuity is accessible to everybody.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  Ironically… Picasso was notorious for idea theft and other artists banned him from their studios.
friedman23 4y ago
It's completely different. The customizable fonts did not violate copyright.
- hansihe 4y ago
  We have no idea if images by Stable Diffusion violates copyright, there is no legal precedent.
  - bioemerl 4y ago
    Technically we do have examples of stable diffusion violating copyright, it will generate some exact clone images if you give it the right prompt and that image exists a few hundred times in the training data.
    - yosame 4y ago
      Just because stable diffusion can be used to violate copyright doesn't mean it only does.
    - MacsHeadroom 4y ago
      For something like 11 images which were accidentally repeated hundreds of times in the training data this is true. They're more the exception that proves the rule.
- coastermug 4y ago
  Incidentally, copyright law etc on fonts is very interesting. Many places license their fonts via in-page JavaScript. However, I believe that such a protection against the font designer doesn’t necessarily apply if for instance you use the font to create a logo. ( I’m sure I’ve missed some nuance here.)
- josephg 4y ago
  That’s a sloppy answer. Right and wrong isn’t defined by how copyright law is written right now. That’s kind of the whole point of this debate. Should we change the laws and if so, how?

mrtksn 4y ago

Artist function is not limited to the act of producing the creation. Their value comes from creating the methods of exploring ideas or feelings and not from the output itself. Guernica is not invaluable because no one else can draw it and Picasso is not infamous because drew the best lines. Just to be clear, I think art made with AI also can have value because it's a tool after all. My concern is, it breaks the business for the people that feeds on and that's not OK.

bioemerl 4y ago
> My concern is, it breaks the business for the people that feeds on and that's not OK. Why not? This is a website that's filled with programmers, almost all of our wealth is built on the skulls of jobs that once existed, and those programs were built without the consent of the people whose jobs were automated away, often through observing and rewriting the processes they used to do. The standard, this has been going on for decades, the only reason it's getting backlash is because this is a group of people who never expected to have this happen to them.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  We automate people's jobs, not taking their intellectual properties and build machines that can churn endless versions of it. The people put out of work by computers no longer work and they were paid in full for the work they did, unlike the people who developed intellectual property on their own dime hoping to be compensated later only to find out that their work was copied and distributed by the computer people.
  - ForestCritter 4y ago
    Automated jobs do the physical work. Here the computer is redistributing the physical work made by the artists, however much diluted. AI cannot make art on its own, it needs to be fed physical art and then be told what it is and what to do with it. It is not automation, it is simply a data manipulating tool.
    - sorry_outta_gas 4y ago
      to me it's less about the process and jobs lost and more about some feeling loss related to the excitement about removing expression and experience from a domain for honestly very little real benefit continuing to transform things which in part centered around exploration, discovery and experimentation into something cold and kind of dumb like we will make some interesting things but it's the general trend of modern society that upsets people everything just getting easier/worse faster
      - ForestCritter 4y ago
        That is also my feeling. There is nothing like having a pile of raw materials, or a set of new inks or water color pencils, etc. and to explore the boundaries of what you can do with them. Art being made from a menu seems rather sad.
      - 8note 4y ago
        On the other hand, paints and canvases are very very expensive, making art a domain of the rich. You can use the ai tools at the library, making art more proletarian. I think the pushback is around status and elitism, and that people with certain backgrounds are societally expected to be not making art.
        ForestCritter 4y ago
        I picked up some nice canvases recently at the dollar tree. Masonite, wood and paper can be painted on. Masonite is actually preferable for acryllic paints and it is quite affordable, as are acryllic paints themselves. You can paint with coffee grinds and beet juice...the exploration is endless. I come from a family of seven living in the backwoods and most of my artist friends would not nearly qualify as rich. I had a teacher once who made the most beautiful art out of entirely recycled metal junk. Art is a reflection of culture, top to bottom and ingenuity plays a big role. Ingenuity is accessible to everybody.
UncleEntity 4y ago
Ironically… Picasso was notorious for idea theft and other artists banned him from their studios.

friedman23 4y ago

It's completely different. The customizable fonts did not violate copyright.

hansihe 4y ago
We have no idea if images by Stable Diffusion violates copyright, there is no legal precedent.
- bioemerl 4y ago
  Technically we do have examples of stable diffusion violating copyright, it will generate some exact clone images if you give it the right prompt and that image exists a few hundred times in the training data.
  - yosame 4y ago
    Just because stable diffusion can be used to violate copyright doesn't mean it only does.
  - MacsHeadroom 4y ago
    For something like 11 images which were accidentally repeated hundreds of times in the training data this is true. They're more the exception that proves the rule.
coastermug 4y ago
Incidentally, copyright law etc on fonts is very interesting. Many places license their fonts via in-page JavaScript. However, I believe that such a protection against the font designer doesn’t necessarily apply if for instance you use the font to create a logo. ( I’m sure I’ve missed some nuance here.)
josephg 4y ago
That’s a sloppy answer. Right and wrong isn’t defined by how copyright law is written right now. That’s kind of the whole point of this debate. Should we change the laws and if so, how?